EA promised again and again that its servers were entirely prepared to handle the influx of players simultaneously logging on for today's North American launch of the always-online SimCity reboot. But we had our doubts that things would go as smoothly as expected, and it seems like our fears were well-founded.

When I first opened up Origin to play SimCity earlier this afternoon, I was greeted with a message helpfully telling me that a slow network was preventing my game library from being loaded. It's possible that this was a problem on my end, but SpeedTest.net didn't show any problems. It seems that it was EA's clogged Origin servers that were temporarily preventing me from playing the game (the error appears to have been fixed roughly an hour after I first encountered it).

Microsoft editor Peter Bright reports letting his game hang at the loading animation for a full eight hours just after the game went live, with noresults. He eventually was able to get in after two or three more attempts to contact EA's beleaguered servers. The Internet is full of similar reports from fans, including a video from popular YouTube game-streamer TotalBiscuit, who highlights the 30-minute queue he encountered for what he notes is "a traditionally single player game."

Origin didn't allow purchasers to pre-load SimCity before its official launch at 12:01am EST this morning, apparently because the development team was "working to polish the game until the very last second," according to a post from an EA community manager. This decision appears to have led to widespread download problems and delays before the game even unlocked and started downloading for many pre-order players. Some online reports indicate that even those with the disc-based retail version of the game were delayed in their installation by Origin server problems.

"We are aware of an issue affecting customers trying to download The Digital Deluxe edition of SimCity. We are working to correct this issue," EA said in a tweeted statement overnight. Later, even after the problems were officially "resolved," EA warned that "due to server load it may take up to three hours for your game to unlock.”

The Origin support forums are predictably loaded with complaints about download and login problems. A community manager had to hop on this morning to apologize and explain the process for requesting a refund.

Plenty of frustrated users have taken to the Metacritic user reviews to drag down the game's score. Many seem to be just generally complaining about the DRM and other issues with the game without being specifically inconvenienced themselves. The game's Metacritic user score currently sits at 4/10, with 61 percent of all reviews rated as negative. "It may be looked down upon to use this as a megaphone to shout through but the fact is that people need to see this, that NO-ONE should EVER support always online DRM for a single player game," Metacritic user penemue wrote.

The issues bring to mind the infamous "Error 37" that prevented many Diablo III players from logging into the game in the days after its launch last year, though it's unclear how comparatively widespread SimCity's server issues are. After that debacle, EA had a good chance here to prove that a publisher could launch a major, Internet-connected game with proper infrastructure and planning and without significant server-related issues. Unfortunately, EA seems to have squandered that opportunity.

Keep in mind that this was simply the first wave of SimCity's worldwide launch. Hopefully EA will learn from the experience and buff up its servers ahead of the game's official European launch on Friday.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

I'd be interested in an article that summarized the architecture of these various online services. For whatever reason, whenever the Steam store/webpage/community etc. is down, my games still work, and achievements are still tracked. And I think I recall even downloading some uninstalled games during an outage like this.

Interested to know how they pull this off, when everyone else can't seem to be bothered.

"Why do you even care that you need to be always connected to play a single server game? What difference does it make in your life?" said those who countered our objections to the always-connected single player game.

This. This is what we fear when we're told our game requires a perpetual internet connection.

Well, I know what to do. Simcity 4 Deluxe on Steam for $20 Glad I have this. I can play it when I want. Sorry EA, but the idea of a sequel is to improve upon the predecessor, and I'm not seeing this happening.

I preordered Simcity as well as Tomb Raider. I didn't preload TR, as i forgot it was releasing yesterday but with steam it wasn't a problem. Tomb Raider went from preload to play in Steam at 00:01h, I started the download and averaged 6.5 megabytes a second, 20 minutes later the whole 9 gigs was done and the game started up.

I continued to play it for an hour and a half while on my second monitor Origin continued to tell me I had successfully preordered Simcity.

When it finally did unlock the download took almost as long.

If Origin wants to replace Steam they need to work harder, right now they need binoculars to see the bar set by Valve.

I'd be interested in an article that summarized the architecture of these various online services. For whatever reason, whenever the Steam store/webpage/community etc. is down, my games still work, and achievements are still tracked. And I think I recall even downloading some uninstalled games during an outage like this.

Interested to know how they pull this off, when everyone else can't seem to be bothered.

It's easy:

* you make the game still work when the server cannot be reached (except for those things that really require it) * you run different things (store, webpage, communty, multiplayer, login services) on different servers in different datacenters so when one thing goes down other stuff still works

Origin didn't allow purchasers to pre-load SimCity before its official launch at 12:01am EST this morning, apparently because the development team was "working to polish the game until the very last second,"

Keep in mind that this was simply the first wave of SimCity's worldwide launch. Hopefully EA will learn from the experience and buff up its servers ahead of the game's official European launch on Friday.

Pfft... A staggered release just means ample opportunity for EA to screw up multiple times.

Quote:

Now on the cynical side, wonder when the $15 DLC with subways is coming?

If poorly made and overpriced DLC didn't sell, it wouldn't be an issue (there is DLC out there worth buying). I was browsing the Playstation Store a few days ago just to see about demos and any PS+ freebies I might have missed when I came across an RPG (made by Atlus, I think) that's only been a out a bit. Yet in just 2 or so months, there are some 60 DLC packs for the game. All of the DLC is clothing, so purely visual set dressing. In the description the developer even pokes fun of their customers saying that fans just can't get enough, so here's another DLC we whipped up in a few days to bring to you. Suggesting the developer isn't really working all that hard on the DLC, just enjoying all the folks tossing them money for virtually nothing.

Well, I know what to do. Simcity 4 Deluxe on Steam for $20 Glad I have this. I can play it when I want. Sorry EA, but the idea of a sequel is to improve upon the predecessor, and I'm not seeing this happening.

Oh man, I played Simcity 4 Deluxe til 4.30am last night! One of the few times I'm glad I don't start work again til April .

I'm going to say something probably wildly unpopular, but there really is another classification that games of this genre fall in to.

They're not single player. Not in the traditional sense.

And for many users out there, it's dishonest to say they expected it was.

Now sure, the experience of building a city doesn't have to be one that includes others, (or perhaps more correctly, a region) but really, if anything, these are sort of MMO-ish.

Yes, each city segment you play yourself.

Yes, each such segment could easily fit a single player mold.

But really, the question should be "why no single player?" because that's really the heart of the matter here. It's not single player. If it was, you could play it offline.

It's at least loosely multiplayer even if you never add another user to your private region.

And that was a design decision. And I do agree that it should affect your purchase decision.

But it's not single player. Not even "DRM-Single-Player".

That is true, however, you could also use that same arguement to state that this would turn traditional "single player" games into glorified Facebook games. Since, Facebook games require an internet connection and most (if not all) have microtransactions.

Today, EA experienced critical problems with their always on DRM servers when they were unexpectedly hammered by users wanting to download and play the game they paid for. EA is expected to blame pirates for the server issues and release DLC to combat the problem.

The only bad news in this article is that eventually the problems will be worked out of the system, people will forget how much of a dog it was at the beginning and the increased sales will later justify EA's process. I was sort of hoping that it would be a complete disaster and they would have to refund everyone and not try this online-only crap for a couple of years.